


Cathedral Where You Cannot Breathe

by callmejude



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adrenaline, Blow Jobs, Comfort Sex, First Time, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Treason Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 18:48:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12091173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmejude/pseuds/callmejude
Summary: Both mentally spiralling from their first taste of carnage after the Battle in the Whispering Wood, Theon and Robb are alone in Robb's tent.





	Cathedral Where You Cannot Breathe

Robb is still shaking later that night. For a moment, Theon considers pointing out that it’s still a good sign — a sign that Robb is smarter than he thinks he is about this war — but decides now isn’t the time for such things. Not when Robb is still pacing back and forth inside his tent. It’s well past the hour where everyone else has retired to their own tents, even Lady Stark has bedded down for the night. Robb is like a caged animal, frantic now that the lords and war councils have departed. Auburn curls plastered to his brow with sweat and his eyes wide. He looks near tears. Theon pays the courtesy of casting his eyes down. He can’t bear to see Robb so upset.

“My father would have never done that,” he says, like they’re in the middle of conversation, “I _knew_ those men would die. I knew it— I should have —”

“You made the right choice,” Theon interrupts sharply, back gone rigid from the tremor in Robb’s voice. “Your father knows it’s rarely the simpler choice. Especially in war.”

“My father would have come up with a better strategy.”

 _Your father is rotting in the dungeons of King’s Landing,_ Theon doesn’t say. It will not help Robb anymore than it helps him, a sour weight in his stomach at the reminder. Eyes still pointed away from Robb’s face, Theon keeps his eyes on Robb’s trembling hands as he moves from one end of the tent to the other.

Theon’s own hands are clenched white and hidden under his furs. He cannot focus on the two thousand lives they lost today. When he tries, it all comes back at once. An onslaught of memory. He can still smell the blood and hear the screams, grown men screaming like animals, the sound of steel carving through flesh all around him. The worst is the fear, still coursing through his veins, causing his heart to still beat like he’s just run a mile. It had been so easy to think of charging into battle. Being in the thick of it was entirely different. Claustrophobic and honorless. It wasn’t like the stories, the tales they’d heard of rebellions as children. He feels no joy in their victory. He just feels weak and tired. Horrified, not just from the battle, but of the moment when Robb had left his side in the fray. Horses were succumbing to arrows and blades all around him, the men atop them falling with screams, before laying still and silent. It was too dark for Theon to tell who any of them were — even if they were men of theirs or of the Kingslayer’s. He couldn’t dare call out, but even now the feeling chokes him. _Robb is gone. You’re alone._

Theon shuts his eyes. They are not there now. He opens his eyes again slowly, watching Robb’s shaking hands and letting the relief seep into him. Robb isn’t gone. He’s here with Theon, safe and alive.

“You’ve survived to fight another battle.” Theon’s voice is hoarse, repeating things he’s been telling himself privately for hours. “We took the Kingslayer as a captive. We’re one day closer to freeing your sisters. That’s what’s important.”

“These men are counting on me out there, do you understand?” 

Robb finally stops pacing to face him, and Theon’s head goes abruptly light as he takes his first breath in ages. 

Before he can respond, Robb adds, “They’re counting on me, all of them, and I sent two thousand of them to die.”

Theon can’t do this now. He wishes Lady Stark were still awake. That Robb hadn’t waved her away insisting he was alright, not wanting his bannermen to see him clinging to his mother for comfort. She could be gentle with Robb, be kindly and reassuring and tell him what he needs to hear. Theon can’t think of any niceties or comforts. He can still feel his heart pounding from the battlefield, wool-thick exhaustion just under his skin. 

In the woods, he doesn’t remember finding Robb again. He just remembers him being there, shouting over the roar of blood in Theon’s ears. “Greyjoy! You’re all right?” 

There had been blood matting Robb’s hair, but it wasn’t his. 

Finally, Theon meets Robb eyes.

“No man is here in your host without reason. They volunteered their swords to you.” He gets to his feet, steps close to Robb, jutting his chin up to keep his gaze. “You’d do best to appreciate their sacrifice and keep marching.”

Robb lets out a breath that ghosts against Theon’s face. He feels hair prickle at his nape, but doesn’t break the stare. Robb doesn’t look away either. Theon feels lightheaded again. Robb looks so pale and tired, Theon has never felt so desperate to just do _something._

“We do not count on you, we believe in you. Any one of us would find it an honor to die out there for you.”

It’s perhaps too dark a thing to say. Speechless, Robb stares back at him in what could almost be awe. The bluster leaves Theon in an instant. No one has ever looked at him that way. Hours ago he wouldn’t think himself so undeserving of it. Suddenly, he feels absurdly young. Younger than Robb. Too young for this war.

They’re standing so close, and they had almost died today, and Theon’s skin is buzzing. The air is suddenly on fire. Robb is still watching him, expectant. But Theon’s voice is wrested from his throat. He can’t think beyond the astonishment on Robb’s face. His hand twitches with the desire to touch him.

It could have happened so quickly, and he wouldn’t be standing here. Theon doesn’t blink, convinced the moment could still pass — that within a blink Robb might crumple lifeless to his feet. It’s suddenly impossible to breathe.

Robb goes so easily when Theon pulls him down that Theon can almost tell himself that it was Robb who surged to meet his mouth, even after he pulls back from the kiss as if scalded.

“What—?”

“ _Please,_ ” Theon breathes, humiliated. He stands on the balls of his feet to kiss him again, heartbeat like thunder in his ears when Robb doesn’t push him away before their lips brush.

Robb moves away again, gentler this time, still mercilessly bewildered. “Are you drunk?” 

“Gods, I wish,” Theon answers tersely.

That makes Robb laugh, a slight little huff and the shadow of a smile. Theon would smile back if he could.

“Please,” he repeats, voice shaking. “Let me —”

When he kisses Robb again, he doesn’t pull away, and what is left of Theon’s resolve crumbles instantly. He claws helplessly at Robb’s furs as he falls forward, crashing Robb’s legs against the edge of his cot and sending them both tumbling backwards onto it with a heavy creak.

Not quickly enough, Robb shakes free of his furs and doublet, and Theon’s knees bracket Robb’s thighs on either side.

“Let me,” Theon is panting against his mouth, helpless and needy, desperate to talk over any protest Robb may have. 

But Robb doesn’t say anything at all, startled mute by the affection. Theon’s hands tangle in Robb’s damp hair, holding him still as he claims his mouth. 

“Gods, let me.”

Sturdy hands press against Theon’s back and hold him still as Robb catches his breath. He’s no longer shaking. Or perhaps now it is only that Theon is shaking too. Robb’s eyes are still wide, face perplexed, but he’s smiling. 

“Seven hells, Greyjoy,” he snaps, a teasing lilt to his breathless voice. “I’m letting you.”

Theon laughs then, high and bordering hysterical. It sounds too much like the sob he’s choking down, so he kisses Robb again before the weight of what surrounds them can settle. When Theon pulls back to breathe, Robb is eyeing him curiously. 

“Have you done this before,” he asks, “with boys?”

It’s such an innocent question, the kind of question people really only ask if they’ve done nothing with either. Theon smiles in response and takes his mouth again. As Robb starts to melt beneath him, Theon releases a fistful of Robb’s hair to slide thin fingers down the loosened waist of Robb’s pants. With a yelp, Robb jolts back from Theon’s mouth, but Theon only pulls him back, shushing against his lips. He’s wound so tight Theon can feel him against his skin like a drawn bowstring. Theon flicks his wrist and Robb gasps against the kiss. It’s such a soft, helpless sound — not much different from any of the brothel girls — and Theon groans and curls his face into Robb’s throat, desperate to hear it again.

The sounds from Robb’s mouth are like strong wine in Theon’s blood, familiar boldness surging through his bones as he feels Robb fall increasingly pliant against him. Cocky and restless, Theon presses his lips to Robb’s ear.

“Shall I bend the knee for you, my king?”

Robb’s cock twitches in his hand, and his voice comes out a breathless whisper when he chides, “That’s — treasonous.”

“Aye,” Theon says with a chuckle as he slides to the ground between Robb’s legs. “So is marching south to kill the crowned bastard.”

When Robb laughs this time it comes out quiet and helpless. He watches Theon free his cock from his linens with dazed eyes. “I — I meant to call me king before — before my father,” he says awkwardly.

“Your father is my warden,” Theon says, eyes boring into Robb’s. “ _You_ would be my king.”

Before Robb can reprimand him again, Theon drags his tongue along the underside of his cock and swallows the head. Anything Robb is about to say dissolves to breathy mumbling on his tongue. Something like power pulls tight at Theon’s spine and he slides his mouth further down Robb’s cock, watching his eyes turn glassy.

“ _Seven_ —” Robb cuts himself off, head falling back against his shoulders. 

His hand reaches for Theon and lands clumsily in his hair, nails digging into his scalp. Theon’s eyes travel the length of his long throat, skin flushed and glowing to where it disappears under his shift, chest heaving. Theon feels his own cock twitch as he watches, focusing on the weight of Robb on his tongue. He lets himself moan, and Robb’s fist tugs hard at his hair. He moans again, shifting against himself to relieve the pressure on his cock. The movement causes Robb’s head to snap back up to look at Theon, eyes dark and unfocused. Robb watching him makes his head spin, and he swallows hard, too entranced to blink away from him.

“Gods, Greyjoy,” Robb hisses under his breath. “We can’t — we can’t be doing this.”

Even as he says it, he doesn’t let go of Theon’s hair, pulling him tighter, closer. Theon watches him swallow hard — against a shout or a sob — and mirrors him. They’re both shivering, despite the pressing summer heat of the tent, and Robb’s mouth moves against more words that don’t quite have the volume to reach his ears. 

“We can’t,” he finally manages again, one hand clenched hard in Theon’s hair and the other gripped white against the edge of the cot. 

Theon remembers daydreaming of this when they weren’t much younger — remembers the way he used to picture it. Frantic and careless in the spring beside the godswood, warm and alive from training in the sticky summer air. He often thought of the things Robb would whisper to him then, but it was never this, never _we can’t_. He had never pictured it to happen this way; a momentary lapse in honour when faced with the risk of losing him, or that Robb would only fall into bed with him out of desperate impulse to feel anything other than terror.

He’d wanted so deeply, remembers the year Robb first grew taller than him — it wasn’t long ago, couldn’t have been, though it feels like centuries now — how it was the first time Theon had ever realized how badly he wished to be taken. How he wanted Robb to hold his wrists down and treat him the way Theon had treated tavern wenches. A spike of irrational jealousy thrums in his blood. It could have been that way if not for this war. It would have been. Ridiculously, Theon is furious that Robb could care about anything else with Theon’s mouth around his cock.

Hands shaking, Theon digs his nails into Robb’s thigh and claws down hard. Robb yelps and tugs Theon’s hair, not pulling him off, only to drag his face up, to look him in the eye. Theon can’t speak, would never pull away to try, lest he breaks the spell, but he sees it, just for a moment. Robb’s thoughts have slipped away, forgotten. He belongs to Theon now.

Theon’s eyes are watering against his need to blink, but Theon is desperate for the look of him, the way his curls stick to the sweat of his brow and the ice in his eyes. This part is still the same, still what he pictured. All he’s ever wanted is to see him this way. If he doesn’t look away from Robb’s staggered face, doesn’t let himself think, Theon can pretend they’re back home in the godswood. Robb is no longer hissing about what they should or shouldn’t do, instead watching him with dark and foggy eyes. No matter the fate of them when he stops, Theon can always have this — this moment when Robb only wanted him. Theon bobs his head, and Robb’s eyes slide shut. A whimper pulls from Theon’s throat and he curls further into Robb’s lap. He feels the slick of tears tracking his face, but he can’t blink. It isn’t fair that Robb gets to. He bobs his head again, whining against Robb’s cock until his eyes pull back open.

Robb opens his mouth, but he can’t seem to manage words. Theon doesn’t want him to. They wouldn’t be the right ones. His other hand releases the edge of the cot to cup the side of Theon’s face, fingers smearing tears over his skin. The touch is like fire, and Theon finally blinks, a few more tears streaming over Robb’s fingers. When he opens his eyes again, Robb drops onto the top of Theon’s head, curled over him as if shielding him. 

“Theon —”

It’s all the warning Theon receives before come hits his tongue. It’s too much and too sudden, and Theon pulls back coughing. Robb hasn’t moved his head, hands still holding Theon’s face as he catches his breath. For a beat, neither of them speak.

“Look at me,” Robb says.

Theon’s head jerks upward like Robb had tugged him back by his hair. He’s panting hard, jaw sore and eyes wide, and Robb is looking at him as if he’s made of gold. The corner of his mouth twitches, but he doesn’t speak. He’s not sure he can.

“You’re shaking,” Robb tells him finally.

Pointing it out only makes him tremble harder. He flushes, embarrassed, and can’t think of how to respond. Of course he’s shaking. His cock is straining in his pants. 

Finally, he nods. “Yes I am, Your Grace.”

A heavy sigh leaves Robb from deep beneath his ribs. He realizes Robb’s hand is shaking too, against his jaw.

“Your smart mouth is going to get you into trouble one day, Greyjoy.”

Theon raises an eyebrow. “It hasn’t yet?” He licks his lips and adds, “Your Grace?”

Robb only stares back at him. He leans forward and claims Theon’s mouth, ripping his hair back to hold his throat prone. Theon shudders, one of his hands twitching to his lap to stroke himself through his pants.

“Take it out,” Robb growls against his mouth, “Let me watch.”

Theon’s hesitation is more out of surprise than indecision, but before he can react, Robb tightens his grip in Theon’s hair. 

“That’s an _order._ ”

Heat wracks through Theon’s body as he pulls himself out of his pants, dragging his hand quick and desperate over his skin. Robb’s eyes are locked on Theon’s face rather than his hand, and it makes Theon faint to stare back at him. The uncertainty is gone, the confusion. All that’s left is that awed look again, and it’s hard for Theon to catch his breath. It isn’t until Robb’s thumb rolls over his cheek again that Theon realizes there are tears on his face to wipe away.

“I wonder if every prince looks as beautiful on his knees,” Robb tells him in a reverent voice.

Theon gasps. Shame and pride wash over him as one. “Your Grace —”

“We — we’ll be our own lords, one day,” Robb babbles, pressing his thumb to Theon’s mouth to quiet him. “Independent from the south — rulers of our own kingdoms, together.”

Theon can’t tell if he’s speaking treasonously or only means their futures as heirs, but he doesn’t care. The words turn his skin to lighting. He nods helplessly, panting against Robb’s fingers.

“Yes — yes,” he begs, “Anything.”

Robb is watching him, something bright in his eyes where there wasn’t a moment ago. He tilts his head, watching Theon curiously.“Yes what?”

Arousal cuts through Theon’s body like a blade, nodding senselessly. “Yes, Your Grace,” he blurts, “An — anything, Your Grace. Anything.” 

Robb is still so close that Theon feels him gasp rather than hears it. His fingers dig tight into Theon’s hair and Theon’s eyes roll back as his orgasm heaves from his body.

When his vision blinks back, Theon is staring down at the mess he’d made of himself, dripping from his hand to the dirt floor of the tent. His shoulders are trembling, and Robb is absently petting his hair.

“Theon?”

Theon looks up at him, still desperate to drink in every second of him. 

The corner of Robb’s mouth twitches, as if reading his mind. “It’ll be dawn soon.”

For one helpless second, Theon wants to crawl beside Robb in his cot and fall asleep curled into him. Instead he nods and shakily tucks himself back into his pants. Robb holds out his hands to help Theon to his feet. 

“I —” Theon starts, before realizing he has nothing to say.

Robb gets to his feet and takes Theon’s mouth in his own. Theon melts against him, falling limp against his chest, like some sort of fainting maid. Robb holds him upright, arms tight around his back. When they pull apart again, Robb is smiling at him, but the uncertainty is back. Guilt, or embarrassment, about the things he’d said. Theon swallows hard, trying to think of something to say that will set him at ease, bring back the look he’d had before.

For the first time Theon can recall, nothing comes to mind. He smiles, strangely shy.

Quiet drags, humiliating in the heavy air, hanging thick around them with the smell of sex. Hesitating, Theon considers kneeling again to break the silence. It had worked before. With no other viable option, Theon turns to leave the tent.

Without thinking, it falls from his mouth again, easy, already habit: “Your Grace.”

Robb seizes his arm and tugs him back, “You can’t —” he starts, and Theon feels his blood run cold and his head swim. “Not — not when they may hear you.”

Theon’s eyes scan the tent, abruptly worried someone may have entered in the last few moments. “And what of when they can’t,” he asks, his voice shaky, and unnaturally soft. “Your Grace?”

Robb takes a breath that swells through his back like wind catching a sail. Theon waits in silence, but Robb doesn’t speak, instead lunging forward in another kiss. For a breath, Theon senses more than he thinks he’s allowed; something wild and desperate in Robb. For just a moment, he’s ravenous — an animal — and Theon and swept into it like some sort of maiden.

When Robb pulls away, his breathing is ragged against Theon’s mouth.

“After sundown tomorrow, I want you back in my tent.”

Heat crawls up the back of Theon’s neck. He resists the urge to bow to him, instead waits for Robb to drop his hold before inclining his head. It could almost be a nod. 

“Yes, Your Grace.”

He turns and leaves Robb’s tent before either of them can think to stop him.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Never Let Me Go" by Florence + The Machine
> 
> (I promise I listen to other music. It's not my fault Florence Welsh's discog is basically just Theon Greyjoy: The Musical)


End file.
